>> for the remainder of the year he was in command of the blockade fleet. the confederates had evacuated pensacola. and so farragut spent much of his time in the latter part of 1862 established a new naval base at pensacola, building back up the naval base that the confederates had seized there back in 1861 in order to provide a closer base for the operation of his blockade fleet. and then in the fall of 1862 he oversaw the occupation of galvest galveston, another naval operation entirely. confederates recaptured it on january 1st, 1863. but for the last three months of 1862 it was another naval base for the union fleet blockading the coast of texas. and they also occupied some

other enclaves along the coast of texas. but his main job in the remainder of 1862 was to strengthen the blockade. he wanted to move against mobile. but for reasons beyond his control the government put off that and kept putting it off until of course the summer of 1864. >> we're right on time which is always wonderful. [ applause ] >> you know, one of the great joys of being associated with this symposium is that we give historians their choice of who to nominate. i'll never forget when john kosky walked into my office with a big smile on his face and he

says "you'll never guess who mcpherson is going to do, david farragut." i went, "really? that's interesting." and what a terrific talk, jim. thank you so much. it's 1:30. we're going to break for 15 minutes. be back in your chairs at a quarter to 2:00. for the tv audience, dr. mcpherson is going to take your questions. and earlier speakers had a great time handling a national audience. thank you.

>> live on american history tv on c-span 3, all day live at the university of virginia, in conjunction with the museum of the confederacy is asking the question who would be the person of the year 1862 following after what time magazine does in their person of the year. we've heard from three historians so far. including just heard from james mcpherson. we'll give you a chance to speak to the professor in just a moment. the nomination so far from robert crick, was stonewall jackson. david blight from yale choosing frederick douglass and james mcpherson with admiral david farragut. we're going to open up our phone lines for your questions and comments to james mcpherson in just a moment. 202-585-3886 for mountain and pacific. make sure you mute your television when you call. in you can also send us a tweet. twitter.com/c-span. our hashtag today if you want to

jot this down #poty 1862." post your choice on person of the year on facebook. just a quick tweet and facebook reading, ben says that his choice would be horace greeley, second choice would be robert e. lee. that's from ben denikian. on facebook a look at our facebook page, james -- george b mcclellan "as much as i desize him, the army of the potomac is not what it will become in 1863." some of the thoughts of viewers on twitter and facebook. let's go back to the library and james mcpherson who just nominated admiral david farragut as his choice for person of the year 1862. james mcpherson if you look at the time magazine selection since 1927, admiral farragut would be the only admiral on that list. you talked in your speech here

about the political implications of his victories in 1862. were they the main reason that france and britain hesitated on recognizing the confederacy that year? >> certainly the main reason why they delayed what looked like was going to be some kind of recognition in the spring of 1862. the capture of new orleans was the most important of a series of union victories that caused them to back off. then though of course during the summer, the confederate victories in the seven days in the second mannasses and the invasion of kentucky by braxton bragg and especially of maryland by robert e. lee's army in september of 1862 revived that prospect of european recognition. in fact, the british and french were prepared to go ahead. but they were just awaiting the outcome of lee's invasion of

maryland, and lee's defeat or at least being turned back after the battle of antietan caused them to back off again. so i think there were two points in 1862. the first one was in the spring. and farragut's victory at new orleans was a major factor in causing them to back off then. and then again six months or so later after antietan. the second reason. that turned out to be the closest confederacy ever got to european recognition. >> do you think it was a mistake for farragut to press on to vicksburg as soon as he did after the victories at new orleans? >> i think he thought it was a mistake. but he was under orders to do so. in fact, those orders came thick and fast from the naval department. he had after capturing new orleans he had sent a message to washington implying that he was going to go after mobile next.

and immediately got a reply from washington to follow his initial orders that gave him control of the mississippi valley was far more important at that stage than mobile. so he went ahead and did it. i think against his own wishes. >> we have plenty of phone callers waiting to ask you questions and make comments. so let's go to california. lompah, cause and cyril is up first. hi there. >> hello. >> you're on the air, cyril. >> oh, all right. unfortunately i did not get to see the scholar who nominated robert e. lee. so i would like to briefly comment on that myself so i could at least get your response to that. >> robert e. lee in this forum anyway has not been nominated today. >> i would like to be a devil's advocate. >> you certainly can go. ahead. >> my reasons are as follows. that he simply was the most important figure in the war. let's not forget that he had four -- i'll be brief -- four

very important battles. he turned the entire southern strategy around by going on the attack in the seven days which had previously been a defensive campaign by the confederacy. and then he -- by not losing the battle at antietam which very nearly did happen he saved the confederacy which could hardly have lived with the destruction of the army in northern virginia and he had his two tactical -- crushing tactical victories. >> i'll let jim mcpherson repliechlt what do you think of his case on robert e. lee? >> just tell him to stay tuned. there are two more nomination toss come this afternoon. and we may hear about robert e. lee yet. i would say that he certainly has a good case. in the end, though, the war was won by the union. and i think that the union navy played a crucial role in that victory. and admiral farragut was the

foremost union naval officer. so i would rest my case on the leader who ultimately helped win the war. >> another california caller, westlake village. this is john. >> hello. i looked at your audience of old white primarily southern faces. and i see this spike in interest in the civil war. and i'd like to ask the professor what this says about our country, and in fact in our current politics many of the old issues and phrases that motivated the civil war have become part of the current lexicon. and my question to the professor is, what does the legacy of the civil war say to us today in terms of where this country is?

>> well, there are many legacies of the civil war. the most important one is that the united states is still one nation and not divided into two or more nations, which would have been the case if the confederacy had succeeded. i think probably success by the confederacy establishing an independent nation would have created a precedent whereby disaffected minority regions might in the future have invoked that precedent. and we might be several countries today like south america rather than one united country. and of course, the other major result of the war was the abolition of slavery and the series of constitutional amendments and laws passed during and after the civil war that created constitutional equality for all people. and that made it possible 140

some years later for an african-american to be elected president of the united states. which of course is another important legacy. it's quite true that many of the issues that divided the country in the middle of the 19th century are still with us today either latent or active. and that represents a kind of continuing struggle in this country to fulfill the ideas that were launched, i think, by northern victory in the war. >> our guest is professor james mcpherson, profess iremeritus at princeton university. he is one of the five historians speaking today live in at the university of virginia on the confederacy and making their cases for person of the year 1862 as the nation celebrates -- recognizes the 150th anniversary of the civil war. here's bob in washington, d.c. go ahead. >> professor mcpherson, i want to thank you for your major

contributions to american scholarship on the civil war. do i recall correctly that it was farragut who said "damn the torpedos full speed ahead." or if it wasn't him was that done at mobile bay? the second question i have after mobile bay, does he do anything outside of the gulf and switch his efforts to the atlantic coast? >> you're right in your first assumption. i wasn't mobile bay when he said "damn the torpedos full speed ahead." that happened as the fleet that he commanded was in the process of passing the forts that protected the entrance to mobile bay. and one of the union ships, an iron-clad, a brand-new iron-clad, the monitor, hit a torpedo which was what they called naval mines then. and went to the bottom immediately with the loss of its whole crew. and the whole union fleet came

to a halt under the guns of the fort. and farragut, taking the risk of going through the mine field, said "damn the potorpedos full speed ahead." the rest of the fleet went through the torpedo field. fortunately for them no other mines exploded. many of them had been rendered harmless by the powder soaking or they broke it loose from the strong currents. but he didn't know that. he was willing to take the risk. he was a risk taker. he was then asked, after capturing mobile bay and shutting that down as one of the last of the blockade-running ports for the confederacy, was asked to take command of the fleet that was going to attack fort fisher in north carolina which guarded the entrance to wilmington which was now the last blockade-running port. but his health had broken down over his hard service for the

previous 2 1/2, 3 years. and so he asked to take a leave of absence. and instead secretary of the navy wells put david dickson porter in command of the fleet that attacked fort fisher. but his first choice for that was farragut. and farragut's health hadn't broken down he would have been in command of that attack, too. >> a couple of more calls for james mcpherson. here's joe in roncomcoma, new york. jo, go ahead with your thoughts. >> dr. mcpherson, if city of new orleans was so important to the con fed as circumstances why wasn't there an attempt to recapture it? >> the confederates did plan several times to attack and recapture new orleans. but the union had a fairly large army there. it was called the army of the gulf. first under benjamin butler. but then from december 1862 onward under nathaniel p. banks, who actually took command of

that army in the campaign that captured port hudson just north of baton rouge. so while the confederates planned a couple of different campaigns to recapture new orleans, they were never strong enough or to put it in the other alternatively, the union forces there were always too strong for that effort to succeed. the attack on baton rouge in august of 1862, i alluded to in my talk, when the arkansas moved down there to try to help the confederate army to recapture baton rouge, that was to be a first step toward an recapture new orleans. but when the confederate attack at baton rouge was repulsed, and unsuccessful, it ended that chance. and later on n undertook a coup efforts but they were never able

to organize a strong enough army to carry it through. >> well, the program there, the library, is about to get back under way. but we will take one more quick call from glenn in downey, california. hi there. >> dr. mcpherson, i'd like to ask you a question. this question is about gettysburg in 1863. i hope it's appropriate. when stonewall jackson had died, had he not died who do you think he would have sided with at third bay at gettysburg, general lee or longstreet? >> i think he would have sided with lee, likely. jackson always wanted to seize and hold the initiative, take the offensive. he was more of an offensive commander than a defensive commander in contrast to

longstreet. so i'm fairly confident he would have sided with leon those decisions. >> james mcpherson, we appreciate you joining us this afternoon. we'll wait with all the rest of our viewerers to see if your choice, admiral david farragut, is picked as person of the year 1862. we'll also remind all our viewers we have covered a number of events with james mcpherson in the past. of his many books, you can certainly find many of those in our video library at c-span.org. thanks for joining us this afternoon. >> well, thank you for having me. >> we're going to stay live and go back live momentarily to richmond. we're going to hear from john mount castle. he is the next historian to speak and make his case. he is actually a retired brigadier general and a former chief of military history for the army. and he'll be the fourth out of five historians speaking at the library of virginia in richmond. we'll take you back live now here on american history tv on c-span 3.

>> ladies and gentlemen, if you could return to your seats and we'll get started in just a moment. , why don't we go ahead and close the doors and get started? okay. our next speaker, those of us in the richmond civil war round

table have grown accustomed to hearing jack mountcastle introduce speakers. or this year preside over our monthly meetings. it is an honor and great fun for me to be able to introduce jack to you. first and foremost you should all know that jack mountcastle is a product of the virginia military institute class of '65. [ applause ] >> jack is another of those retirees who is working as hard as retirement as he did when he was working. he teaches classes for the university of richmond and the virginia historical society. and like bob crick, he's becoming known as the father of another civil war historian, dr. clay mountcastle who's product of vmi class of '94. [ applause ] >> clay is the author of "punitive war, confederate guerillas and union reprisals." i had the pleasure of reading that book early and plugging it for the book seller. it's a fabulous read.

i recommend it to all of you. but a lot of local folks know that jack mountcastle retired from the u.s. army as a brigadier general. fewer people know that he also earned his ph.d in history. so i've never known whether to call him dr. general or general doctor. but ladies and gentlemen, here's jack mountcastle. and did i remember to tell you that he's a product of vmi? [ cheers and applause ] >> i agree with the applause for wade rolls. i think he did a superb job. we just keep trapg him year in and year out. he's getting better and better at these all important int introductions. it's mid afternoon and you're

all still here. i think that's great. john? great job. excellent. [ applause ] >> well, like everyone else who's had the privilege of nominating a person of the year for 1862, i'm very, very pleased to be here with you. and like our other candidates, those we've already heard about and those yet to hear about, my man had a major impact on the events in this very, very crucial year. in the war, yes, certainly, but also in america's history, in america's story. what about this fellow that i'm nominating? >> well, born of a good family and in comfortable surroundings, raised politically as a whig. and so in his case just from childhood he developed the respect for order and

discipline, for hierarchy, the value of hierarchy, enlightened reason of course, and then moderation in all things. these principles would not only support his growth through his youth into adulthood, well-educated man, but later happily married man as well. he was successful in his every endeavor prior to 1862. he was a natural choice for the position to which he was appointed in 1862. not only was he a good-looking young man, not only was he well off, he was popular. but he had a way with words. i would guess that you may have identified my nominee by now.

george brenton mcclellan of philadelphia. i see we have some philadelphia fans in the audience [ laughter ] >> if you go over here to the virginia bookstore you can buy those little napkins that say "to be born a virginiaen is really something special." in philadelphia you can't buy them. your money is not good enough, you know? you have to have a pedigree [ laughter ] >> graduated number two in his class at west point, 1846. he was commissioned in the corps of engineers. unlike people like george picket, he went into the corps of engineers. he was a veteran of the war with mexico where he served with distinction. in the decade following that war he was one of a group of young protege's of the very, very active, engaged secretary of war

jefferson davis. because jeff davis had quite a bit of confidence in young captain mcclellan in 1850s, he was part of a hand-picked group that davis sent to the crimea to observe the french and british in their siege of sabastapol held by the russians. mcclellan established a reputation then as being very, very intelligent in his approach to dealing with british and french engineers and sent some excellent reports back to the united states war department, picked up a lot of life experiences while he was over there in some bad neighborhoods [ laughter ] >> when he got back, though, he looked at what the army had to offer him. kind of an stultefied period in our history, unless you were particularly fond of chasing comanches along the rio grande. that didn't really offer quite so much to a young man on the

way up as did an offer from the illinois central railroad. as you know, railroad construction and expansion was the dot-com boom of the mid 1850s. and so he submitted his resignation to the u.s. army, as did a number of his fellow west pointers, and began an engineering career. and within a year he was moved up to a position of vice-president within the illinois central railroad. he soon, as i said, became very, very successful and well-known. he was also going through a little bit of a crisis in confidence. i said that his family was of the whiggish variety. and he had always admired people like conservative politician daniel webster. he found himself, the more he heard about this radical group,

these abolitionists within the new republican party actually repelled by their pushiness and demands for this and demands for that. and so in 1856 he made the decision that he would no longer identify himself as a whig and certainly not as a republican, and he became what was typically referred to as a very conservative democrat. and in 1858, as a conservative democrat and a board member -- officer rather of the illinois central, he supported the democratic candidate for a senate seat in the u.s. senate from illinois. the man, of course, steven a. douglas. interestingly enough for young mcclellan who was just in his 30s at this point, he actually knew the republican candidate for the senate seat who ran unsuccessfully in 1858, a lawyer named abraham lincoln.

had done some legal work for the illinois central and had worked for mcclellan in that capacity. with the outbreak of war in april 1861, mcclellan's name popped up again and again among midwestern states, and even pennsylvania, state of his birth. with the governors of each of those states vying for his services, who could capture this young man mcclellan with his world record and his record of success in business to lead their volunteer forces? it would be governor dennison of ohio that would get mcclellan to sign on the dotted line. and he became commander major general of ohio volunteers of all the ohio force being raised at a feverish pitch in 1861. so on the third of may he took charge of these forces from ohio. in 11 days on the 14th of may, here comes a different commission, major general united

states army. oh, my gosh, now he's second in command only to his war-time commander from mexico, old general winfield scott in washington. as someone who moved at a considerably more sedate pace up the scales, i can tell you moving from captain to major general in that short of time is really moving at warp speed. and it was as major general u.s. army and the commander of the department of ohio that mcclellan would lead union forces across the ohio river into the area around claksburg, virginia. today if you look for it on the map you have to look over to west virginia. clarksburg, virginia, on the 27th of june, 1861. so the summer of '61 sees him moving into action. assisted by his old antebellum army friend william